Finding God through the lens of an artist

Well, everyone, it’s been another week. We are now 12.5 days into NaNoWriMo, nearly halfway to the end already. Supposedly, the second week is supposed to be where we run into the wall and find ourselves without any creative juice. It’s true that there have been times that I’ve been tempted to spend free time playing video games or reading, but being behind in my word count has given me the push to keep going. Unfortunately, with a busy weekend last weekend and a Christmas script to finish, I wasn’t able to get any writing done for a few days. That really starts to hurt when each day of no-writing puts you back 1667 words off the pace. But I’ve kept going, and I’ve reached a new milestone in my writing.

Before this project, my longest piece of writing was a 38 page manifesto for a Hermeneutics class. That translates to roughly 9500 words. Yesterday, I crossed the 10000 word mark, making this novel already my longest project yet. It’s exciting to think about how much has already been put into this, and how much I still have to do. I really believe I have enough in me to finish a proper length book!

Another interesting observation: my writing has sped up! By about 20%. I was averaging about 1000 words per hour when I started, and have increased that to about 1200. If this continues, I’ll be tearing through the latter half of the book in no time!

So, here are my stats so far:

Words written: 11726

Word I should have written by the end of today to stay on track: 21 667

Average number of words written in my genre: 8370

Average number of words written in Calgary: 10717

So, I’m ahead of the averages, but I’ve got a lot to do to catch up to where I should be.

This week, I’ve introduced the rest of my main cast, written a piece for my main antagonist, and introduced more of the world. We’ve also been introduced to the big mystery that our heroes have to solve. I’ve been writing a bit out of order, but will end up putting it all together soon.

I should have time tonight to add another 2000-3000 words, which will carry me well past the 1/4 way point. Let’s just hope my boys cooperate and that my mind doesn’t melt in the process.